Primary Care Medicine
by arainymonday
Summary: Dr. Barry Allen has been in seclusion for six months following his battle with the Reverse Flash. Although he defeated his enemy, a dear friend died during the fight. Barry is determined to see only his closest family members after the traumatic events of that night, but that resolution is tested when Gorilla Grodd attacks the city. Sequel to Atlas of Surgical Operations.


**Title:** Primary Care Medicine  
 **Rating:** Mature **  
Warnings:** medical trauma, surgery, past child abuse, PTSD **  
Relationships:** Barry/Len, Cisco/Lisa, Eddie/Iris, Caitlin/Ronnie, Hartley/Axel **  
Spoilers:** none

 **Author's Note:** Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed the story. If you did, your comments and favorites would be appreciated. I don't have a beta-reader so all mistakes are my own. I will correct them if you point them out to me. So now all that's left is the finale. I'm pretty emotional about the conclusion. Writing has been a little slow because of it, but I'll try not to make you wait too long to see how it all turns out. As always, you can find me on Tumblr as arainymonday.

* * *

 **Primary Care Medicine  
** by arainymonday

Barry is running. Running faster than he ever has before. He's chasing the red lightning trails ahead of him, desperate to catch up because if he doesn't, the plan doesn't work. Someone dies.

He knows that he can't win this race a second too late. He watches the plan fall apart in slow motion. For the second time in his life, he witnesses a murder. The sight of the blood makes Barry run hot, and then it's cold. So cold he can't move, breathe, think. But he's so hot, too hot, unbearably, inhumanly hot.

He wakes up with an aborted cry and sweat dripping down his temples. He sucks in a shuddering breath, but he's a slave to his thundering heart. Cold hands against his burning skin remind him that he's not alone, and eventually, when his heart isn't so loud in his ears that it drowns out the entire world, he hears Len's voice.

"He's gone, Barry. Remember? Eobard is imprisoned at the Vanishing Point. He can't hurt anyone anymore."

Barry breathes slow and deep because he can't do anything else. He can't speak, can't move, can't breakdown. He's suspended in this nightmare even while he's awake like an organ floating in a jar waiting for a med student to slice it open and find a second life for it as a teaching tool. Except Barry hasn't found a second life yet. He's still waiting, six months later, for his life to course correct. Life refuses to comply, and it's no wonder.

The other Martin Stein - the one who is a physicist and insists his Earth is Earth-1 - had placed a hand on Barry's shoulder and said, "He is the man who saved Central City. On two Earths, at least, and many more I suspect. It is who he is wherever he is." And then he had left with the Legends to go back to his Earth. An Earth where Barry had also gotten his friend killed.

"Yeah," Barry says eventually. "It was a nightmare. That's all."

From the corner of his eye, he can see Len's frown and pinched expression. He's not supposed to belittle his nightmares. Axel is very clear about that, but Axel also admits he doesn't know how Barry feels because Axel didn't fail at his part of the plan. He didn't tip off the Reverse Flash with a stupid, cocky aside. He wasn't too slow to save his friend's life.

"I need to get ready for work," Barry mumbles.

Len doesn't join him in the shower because five months ago Barry screamed at him to _'give me some fucking space!'_ so he would have a place to himself where he could cry and punch the tile and claw at his skin and hate himself without any witnesses. Between the running water and the vent, Len shouldn't be able to hear any of this, but he knows anyway. He can see it in Len's eyes and feel it in his touch and taste it in his kisses.

"Have a nice day at work," Len says after they've finished a silent breakfast and cleared away the dishes. His fingers linger on Barry's cheek and he comes in for another slow kiss. "I love you."

Barry clings to him like he might die if he lets go, but he has to let go anyway because other people definitely will die if he stays holed up in their apartment like he wishes they could do. Len kisses him once more. It's light and sweet and sad and if anything in the world could make this better, it's that kiss. But life isn't a fairytale and kisses aren't magic. Not anymore.

"I love you too."

They share a silent goodbye - just a wave and lingering look - on the sidewalk. Len gets into his car and pulls out of the parking lot, heading north toward Central City General Hospital. For a moment, Barry feels a tugging in his heart, like it knows he belongs in the passenger seat and in the familiar hallways and ORs of his residency hospital. Except he doesn't belong there anymore, so he boards the bus and rides across town and dons the bright teal scrubs popular at Central City Children's Hospital and rounds on patients and performs surgeries and spends his day not talking to his colleagues who admire his surgical skill and reputation, but don't want to be his friend because he clearly doesn't want to be theirs. It's lonely, but it's better this way. It's about the medicine and saving lives, and Barry needs to save as many lives as possible. He has so much to atone for.

o o o

When Barry is with his patients, he can forget about speedsters and timeships and murders. He's always been able to. It's one of the reasons he loves rounds and consults and surgery so much. He can forget, and he can fix someone else, even if he can't fix himself.

"Good morning, Samira," Barry says.

Samira is fourteen, a young athlete with a promising career in golf if her pelvis fracture from a car accident heals properly. That's been tricky given the way her metahuman gene expresses itself. She missed a whole golf season because of the injury, though, and she doesn't appreciate his warm greeting.

"It's raining," Samira says flatly.

Mrs. Amin clucks at her daughter. "Dr. Allen is here to help you. Be polite to him."

"It's fine," Barry says. He works with teenagers who are scared and in pain every day. That was a pretty good greeting. "I've taken a look at your scans, and I think we need to work on controlling your ability a little more."

Samira groans and drops her head back on her pillow. Barry perches on the edge of her bed. He misses having other doctors in the room with him - the trusty presence of Kara and a gaggle of interns, one of whom could keep Samira company and in good spirits - but Children's isn't a teaching hospital and he's on his own here.

"I'm so sorry, Samira, but I think we have to put you in traction." Her eyes well with tears. The last time they put her hips in traction, she had a panic attack. "I don't see any other way to counterbalance your natural elasticity. I'm so sorry."

"I could try harder," she says, her voice wobbly and all bravado gone. She leans into her mom when Mrs. Amin pets her hair.

"I'll need you to do that," Barry says, "but you're going to need help with it, and that's what the traction will do. Before we start, and the whole time you're in traction, we'll give you a mild sedative to help you relax."

She starts to cry in earnest and Barry makes his exit to give Samira and her mother time to process the new treatment plan and make peace with the fact that medicine is the toughest kind of love.

o o o

Barry is home long before Len. The Chief at Children's encourages her surgeons to keep a good work/life balance by capping their surgical hours. The kids who come to Children's are out of other options. Their cases are the hardest, and too often, are next to hopeless. It beats doctors down after awhile if they don't have something better to come home to.

Fortunately, Barry has Len. And tonight, he has Leo too.

"Who is the cutest, stinkiest baby in the whole world?" Barry coos, while he finishes up changing Leo's diaper. He tickles Leo's tummy, making him squeal in delight, and snaps up his onesie again. "That's better, isn't it? Now you don't need to cry anymore."

He lifts Leo into his arms and plants a kiss on his forehead and heads back into the kitchen to finish up dinner, which he's not doing a great job of cooking, but it'll be something for Len when he gets home. Leo babbles at him while he cuts up lettuce and debates whether to use the house or Greek dressing.

"Which one should I use, Leo?" Leo's chubby fist flails in the direction of the house dressing. "Excellent choice, Leo. High five!"

"Is our nephew dictating dining choices already?" Len asks. He sets his briefcase by the door and gives Barry a kiss, then lifts Leo out of his playpen and showers him with affection. "I thought we'd have a couple years before we were bullied into keeping blue box macaroni and Lucky Charms in the pantry."

"What are you talking about? We have both of those things in the pantry right now."

Len shakes his head at Leo, making him giggle in delight. "What are we going to do with your Uncle Barry?"

A year ago, Barry would have made a quip about all the naughty things Len could do to him after Cisco or Lisa picks Leo up, but a lot has happened in a year and Barry lets the moment pass.

Len makes up a bottle for Leo while Barry sets the table, and they have a quiet dinner while they talk about their days in general terms to preserve patient confidentiality because they have to do that now that they don't work with the same patients.

"I've exceeded my surgical hours for the week," Barry says. It's only Tuesday. At this rate, he'll be bored out of his mind in a year, but he can't go back to CCGH so he'll have to learn to live with it. "I'm rounding in the mornings, but unless any of my patients are critical, I have Leo all week."

"If you're bored, you could continue your research with Harrison."

Dinner tastes like ash in Barry's mouth. He doesn't answer Len, just looks down at his plate, but he doesn't really see the salmon and salad. He can't focus on anything but the disappointment sounding inside his own head. As long as Barry stays off the treadmill in the Metahuman Research Lab, Dr. Wells has no chance of walking again.

"Or maybe I could take an afternoon off," Len says. "We could take Leo to the park together."

Barry draws in a deep breath, forces himself to look up at his husband who has tried so hard and been so patient, and he nods once, plasters on a smile that feels fake. "Yeah, that would be great."

For a moment, Barry doesn't see Len as he really is. He sees Len in a borrowed blue parka trimmed with fur. He sees Len holding a cold gun and trying not to show how terrified and out of his depths he is here. He sees Len refusing to look at the other Mick and the other Sara in case they confirm something he can't know when everything comes down to him and Barry. Len hadn't needed to worry. He'd been great. It was Barry - cocky, stupid, reckless Barry - who had fucked it all up.

Barry shakes his head, blinks at the wetness pooling in his eyes, and excuses himself with a mumble. He hears Leo's cry building up to a wail as he walks away. He doesn't like being left - something that causes Lisa and Cisco more guilt than they deserve - but what he's too young to realize is that the uncle he loves isn't really here right now. This Barry is someone else. Someone ugly, someone damaged, someone who deserves to feel this guilt.

o o o

Rainbow-hued leaves scatter across the walkway as Barry and Len climb the front steps of the Steins' house laden with casserole dishes and a few pies. Martin called a few hours ago to ask for Len's help with Thanksgiving dinner. He didn't sound thrilled about a carry-in Thanksgiving, but he's thirteen hours into what might be an eighteen hour surgery and he doesn't trust anyone but Len with the cooking.

"It's so good to see you both!" Clarissa gushes when she opens the door.

She foregoes the usual hugs because they're balancing a precarious amount of food. Lisa, Cisco, and Tina come to help them unload the meal onto the kitchen counters and take direction from Len about which dishes need to go into a warm oven. Barry wanders into the living room where his dad is on the floor playing with Leo who is more interested in tasting the plastic triangular peg than figuring out which hole in his game it fits into.

"This was your favorite game when you were a baby," Henry says.

Barry lowers himself onto the floor and greets Leo with a kiss to the forehead. Leo throws the triangular peg at Barry and shrieks in delight.

"Thanks, Leo," Barry says with a chuckle. "Was it really? I figured I would have been more of a stuffed animal kid."

Henry shakes his head. "No, you got all the cuddling you needed from us. Sort of like this little guy is always getting affection."

That doesn't surprise Barry. What he can remember of his childhood before everything fell apart is so happy. That's what made the loss so devastating and made him able to survive it intact.

"No surgeries today?" Henry asks.

"The Chief sent out a memo reminding us that the holidays are for families. Our patients' and our own. ORs are closed except for emergency cases."

"From what Len says, it sounds like you have a lot of free time on your hands. Are you okay with that?"

Barry shrugs, mostly because he doesn't want to answer the question. No, he's not okay with having a strict cap on surgical hours and that cap being too low for his liking. But he's more okay with that than coming back to CCGH.

"It gives me more time to babysit Leo," Barry answers, which isn't an answer at all.

Once the food situation is sorted out, everyone comes back into the sitting room to talk and wait for Martin to finish up his surgery and come home. Leo shrieks in delight when he sees his Uncle Len and waves his chubby arms around until Len picks him up and kisses his cheeks. Leo promptly falls asleep on Len's chest. Lisa throws her hands in the air, and Cisco gestures so wildly he almost smacks himself in the face.

"Not fair," Cisco says, at the same time Lisa says, "So unfair," and Cisco finishes up his stunted rant with, "Just ... not fair."

"Is he not sleeping through the night yet?" Henry asks.

"No, he does," Cisco answers, "depending on what you consider 'the night'. Personally, I consider 4am part of 'the night' but my son thinks that's a great time to wake up."

"I so glad he can't make M sounds yet," Lisa confesses. "It never sounds like he's asking for me when he babbles after waking up. I can make Cisco go take care of him and get a little extra sleep."

"I knew it!" Cisco laughs. "You don't actually think he's saying 'dada' yet, do you? It's just close enough that you can claim he's asking for me."

"Precisely." Lisa flashes him a sly grin and kisses his cheek. "You knew what you were signing up for when you married me."

"I did." Cisco's grin is so wide it has to hurt his cheeks.

"That's strange," Len says. He sits on the couch beside Barry and Leo shifts into a more comfortable position, his little fists still balling up Len's sweater. The look he gives Barry is shifty, mischievous. "He usually sleeps until about 7 when we watch him."

Barry bites his lip to keep from laughing and decides to play along. "And he likes a nap in the afternoon. I thought he was sleeping a little bit too much, actually."

Lisa and Cisco's grins have turned to scowls, and Barry can't help himself. He gives up the game with a laugh.

"I'm sorry, guys. I'm sorry. We're sorry. Right, Len? We're sorry?"

"Payback is going to be a ... mean lady," Cisco says, his eyes cutting to Leo.

That makes Barry laugh even harder. "Oh no. Not a mean lady."

"Dude," Cisco says abruptly.

"My, life is very interesting with children," Tina says to Henry.

"Of any age," Henry agrees.

Martin finishes his surgery a little before seven which means Thanksgiving dinner is very late, but they're all used to a surgeon's schedule, and Martin's patient survived the grueling surgery so it's more than worth a delayed dinner.

"I told anyone left at the hospital that they are welcome to come over for Thanksgiving dinner whenever they're free, however late that might be," Martin says. "I think Hartley and Axel might take me up on that offer, but it looked like Sara and Mick were settling into the ER for the night, and Nyssa and Caitlin won't be finished with their surgery for quite some time yet. They were just going in as I was scrubbing out."

"And we know the Wests are having an expanded Thanksgiving this year," Cisco says.

Barry doesn't know what he means by that. He hasn't talked to Iris or anyone who isn't his family - the people in this room - in six months.

"Joe is nervous about it," Henry says. "I would be too. I know something about what they're going through. It's not easy putting your family back together after twenty years."

He claps a hand on Barry's shoulder and gives him a look that he can't quite read.

"I feel like maybe I want to hear this story?" Barry says.

They all stare at him for a minute, like they've forgotten everything that happened to drive Barry away from his job, his friends, his life. Like they've forgotten what he's responsible for. And for a little while, so has he. He's been laughing and joking with his family, enjoying their Thanksgiving. He shouldn't have been, though, because his family gets to have a great Thanksgiving, but another family doesn't and never will again because of him.

"Why don't we tell Barry over dinner?" Clarissa suggests.

"Yes," Martin agrees. "I, for one, am starving."

Everyone heads into the dining room and the beautifully laid table, but Barry hangs back and struggles to get his emotions under control. He doesn't know how to feel right now. Worse, he doesn't know what to express and what to repress, how to feel however he feels without inflicting himself on his family on a day when they're supposed to be happy and joyful and thankful.

He starts when the hand touches his shoulder and turns to see Lisa looking at him like she can see right through his facade and torment and down into the depths of his soul.

"It wasn't your fault, Barry. I know you think it was because it happened in front of you, but it wasn't." Barry blinks against his tears and shakes his head, gearing up to argue, but Lisa isn't done. "You think it was your fault because you're at the middle of it all, but being in the middle of it doesn't mean you're to blame."

Barry can appreciate the sentiment, and it makes sense if they're talking about his mother's murder, but they're not. They're not talking about Barry as a kid. They're talking about Barry as an adult with the speedforce.

"It was my fault, Lisa. Just let me take the blame and deal with it, okay?"

"Do you remember how you felt the first night you were in foster care?" Lisa asks. Barry nods once, just a jerk of the head, because he doesn't like reliving that day. "I felt like the world hated me. First, I had to deal with my mom leaving. And then my dad hitting me. And then Lenny getting sent to juvie and my dad going to jail. It was so clear to me that world hated me. Nothing else made sense, but that did. I was a thing to be hated. That's all that made sense to me. I was seven."

Barry's vision swims because her words are so brutal and familiar and true that it's a physical ache in his chest.

"But the world didn't do anything to me. My parents did. I thought that because bad things happened to me, I was a bad thing. I was to blame. But I'm not. My parents own the blame and only my parents. Barry, you're not to blame for his death anymore than you are for your mother's. You think you are because the person who has terrorized you your whole life told you you're to blame before he murdered our friend. You can't believe him, Barry. You know you can't believe men like him. They will say anything, do anything to make other people feel as twisted and broken and dark as they are. They bend the truth until it breaks you, and the only way we win is to see through their lies, to see the goodness in ourselves."

Barry draws in a shuddering breath. "If I'd been faster -"

"You would have died."

"No -"

"It was a trap, Barry. You were in the middle of it all. You couldn't have seen what I saw. He was trying to lure you into running into the stream of the cold gun."

Barry shakes his head, but those few seconds are a jumble in his mind. It's possible, maybe. If Len pulled the trigger a millisecond before Barry rushed forward ...

"But I gave away the plan -"

"No, you didn't. Trust me, Barry. When that ice hit him the first time, he was _stunned_. Like full on deer-in-the-headlights stunned. He had no idea we had absolute zero technology. He knew you wanted to stop him, but he had no idea you actually could do it. By the time you got there, he'd recovered some, but everything else that happened was a desperate attempt to escape."

Barry reels back. He doesn't know what to think or believe.

"I don't care what he says," Lisa says, flipping her hair and lifting her chin in a way that makes her look dismissive and defiant at the same time, "Axel can fight me if he thinks we should give you space. I'm a mom now. I know when littles need space and when they need comfort. And you, Barry Allen, need a hug from your big sister."

Barry grins because he can't stop himself. She says it like it's tough love, but it the kindest form of love he can imagine. He hugs her back tightly and breathes in the floral scent of her shampoo that reminds him of home and safety and love although he can't quite pin down why.

"You know I'm barely younger than you, right?"

"Doesn't matter. You're a little," Lisa says. "That's what we used to call you when you were interns. All of you are littles."

"Even Cisco?" Lisa flashes him a lascivious look that makes Barry recoil. "No. Don't. No. Come on. Let's go eat."

They're almost in the dining room when Lisa's smile dips. She doesn't say anything, and it's back on her lips when they take their seats across from each other, but it's a reminder to Barry that he's not the only one who lost a friend, and maybe he's not the only one who feels survivor's guilt.

o o o

Barry stays awake all night thinking about what Lisa said. At first, he thinks he's dwelling on whether or not to believe her in case she lied to protect his feelings or speed up his grieving process or just make him better already because everyone is sick of him being this way, but then he realizes that he's not questioning the truth because he doesn't think Lisa would lie to him about anything, much less something this important. Come to think of it, he's never heard her tell a lie ever. Even when she's trying to manipulate someone to get her way, it's so obvious that it's cute and quirky. No, he completely believes her version of events.

It's the part about her being his big sister that his mind circles back around to. She's never used the word brother - ever, and not even brother-in-law - to describe Barry. He's always been her brother's husband because Lisa only has one brother - the best brother ever, in her eyes - and there's no sharing that word. Or, at least, that's how Barry has always seen it, but now that his brain is obsessing over the idea, he wonders if it's less her being uncomfortable with Barry being her brother and more her being unsure if Barry thinks of her as his sister, and if that's the case, then what else has he missed, not just these last six months, but these last five years?

Barry has spent most of his life thinking of himself as a problem, an imposition, a burden. But what if he's not? The question alone shakes him to his core, makes him feel as exposed and deconstructed as a patient on an operating table, and like that patient, he thinks the answer will either fix him or kill him, and he's terrified of the odds.

"Len."

It's two o'clock in the morning. He shouldn't do this, but he can't stop his hands from reaching for the soft cotton of Len's sleep shirt and shaking his shoulder.

"Len?"

Len wakes up with a snuffle that makes Barry's heart leap. "What is it, baby? Did you have another nightmare?"

Barry shakes his head, even though Len's eyes can't be sharp enough in the dark yet to see it. "I'm scared," Barry whispers.

"Of what?"

Because he doesn't know what to say, Barry shifts closer and lays his head on Len's chest. Len wraps his arms around Barry and cards his fingers through Barry's hair and somehow keeps himself from falling back asleep despite the silence.

"Is this helping?" Len asks later.

"So much."

Barry doesn't remember falling asleep, but when he wakes the sun is up and the face of the alarm clock is blank. He's still laying halfway on top of Len, still wrapped up in his arms, and he feels a surge of affection that's hard to contain. He presses a kiss to Len's breastbone through the soft sleep shirt and let's his eyes slip shut again.

When he wakes up again, it's because there's a noise intruding on his dreams. They've shifted positions slightly and Barry can reach his phone without jostling Len, although the ringtone has already woken him up. It's a text from his Chief, who is looking for him.

"Did you unplug the alarm clock?" Barry asks groggily.

"Yeah," Len says, while he rubs at his eyes.

When he stretches, a patch of skin between his pants and shirt is exposed. Barry bends down and kisses the bare skin. Len makes an interested sound.

"Can we save this thought?" Barry asks. "My Chief is hunting high and low for me, apparently. I need to get to the hospital."

"Yeah, of course," Len sounds surprised.

It's a painful reminder of how standoffish Barry has been the last six months. He honestly can't remember the last time they were intimate, and considering how their relationship began and continued for so long, it's tempting to let the guilt pile on, but Barry doesn't let it settle on his shoulders. He's not quite sure how he dodges a burden so primed just for him, but he sort of thinks Lisa deserves an ever bigger thank you than he realized last night.

"Tonight?" Barry asks, while he gets dressed and hunts up a pair of socks that are probably Len's, but they're the first ones he can find. Their dresser is suspiciously empty which means it's his turn to call the laundry service and he's a couple days late. "We could go to dinner, maybe? And a walk on the boardwalk? We haven't done that in awhile."

Len's eyebrows arch higher, but he's smiling too. "We'll be the only people on the boardwalk. Everyone else will still be fighting over fifty percent off Rokus."

Yesterday barely registered as Thanksgiving to Barry, so it takes him awhile to figure out that's a Black Friday reference. He groans. Black Friday is a nightmare for retail workers and doctors. Although, he doesn't have to worry about ER shifts and consults anymore.

"Oh, man. When you go in today, make sure to check on Sara and Iris."

"I'll tell them you're worried."

Barry pauses with one shoe on, but then he nods. Maybe it's a good way to end six months of radio silence, because now he knows that he has to talk to Iris. About everything that happened and about her little brother, who they didn't know was her brother despite working with him for two years.

"Bella Notte?" Barry asks. "Any chance you can make it at six?"

"I'll appoint Caitlin interim Chief again if I have to," Len says. "I'll be there."

Barry crawls onto the bed to kiss Len goodbye. "I love you."

"I love you too."

His Chief is spitting mad by the time Barry arrives at the hospital forty minutes later, but he lets her lecture about professionalism and patient care blow past him. Today, at least, nothing can stick to him. Today, at least, he's reclaimed his armor.

o o o

They hold hands as they walk across the waterfront. Len isn't usually one for public displays, but it's late and cold and dark. The Christmas color lights of Central City and Keystone reflect off the water and make the night seem brighter than it really is.

"I'm sorry," Barry says suddenly and too quickly. "I'm sorry about the way I've been acting, and -"

Len squeezes his gloved hand. "There's nothing to apologize for. You wouldn't apologize for having a heart attack. You don't have to apologize for ..."

Barry feels a lump forming in his throat. Doctors are quick to diagnose their patients with mental illness and call for a psych consult and genuinely believe that there is no shame in needing a different sort of doctor to help them heal. But they don't use words like post-traumatic stress disorder to describe each other. Those words floating around in their personnel file have legal liabilities. So they avoid the words, and too often, treatment because they are legally obligated to report all medical treatment and procedures to their licensing board. It's a no-win, so they avoid it, and feel the shame of needing help and the shame of avoiding help and the shame of being a hypocrite.

"... for your PTSD," Len says. Barry feels an electric shock run through him. "Or for the way you grieve."

They walk and Barry breaths in time with their footsteps and it helps, just focusing on breathing and walking and holding Len's hand. They're near a walking bridge leading back into Keystone when Barry feels like his tongue and tear ducts won't rebel against him if he speaks.

"I feel like I've derailed everything," he says. "We had plans. We talked about starting a family after Eobard was gone, and instead I ... I might as well have disappeared from our lives with him for all the good I've been."

"You haven't derailed anything," Len says. "I promise, there are still babies and kids that need a home. You and I know that there always will be. We'll start our family when you're better."

"You've been waiting on me for _so long_."

They haven't said it plainly lately, but there is a ticking clock. Len will be fifty next year, and it feels like a deadline as much as a milestone. There are certain life events that go with certain decades, and maybe it's changing with social norms and modern medicine, but they're traditional enough that fifty doesn't align with having a baby.

"Hey," Len says. He rubs Barry's arm to bring him back to the present. "We're going to have a family and a house with a white picket fence and a treehouse -"

"That's a new detail. I like it. I always wanted a treehouse when I was a kid."

"See. Some things are better when you wait for them."

Barry's chooses to let this be a good moment. It would be so easy to twist it into something else, but he doesn't. He lets himself grin and flash Len a secretive look.

"So you're saying you want me to go slow when we get home? Lots of kissing ... everywhere?" He says, letting his eyes roam over Len's body even though he's covered head-to-toe in a hat, scarf, coat, gloves. "Maybe even a little teasing? I know how you like it when I act shy."

Len turns sharply on the boardwalk, heading back the way they came, to their car parked in front of Bella Notte. Barry laughs brightly, and he does feel bright.

They stumble into their apartment twenty minutes later, attached at the lips and moving too fast if Barry really is going to try and draw this out. He pulls back and braces his palms against Len's chest to keep him from closing the space again. He looks so confused Barry almost starts to laugh, but he only bites his lip and drops his fingers to the buttons of Len's peacoat. He slips each button through its hole and pushes the coat off Len's shoulders. Next is his scarf followed by his tie, and by then Len is grinning and guiding Barry by the hips to their bedroom, and they leave a trail of clothes from their front door to their bed.

They spend a lot of time kissing - lips and necks, hands and shoulders, hips and thighs - and when Len finally pushes into Barry, he feels like every nerve ending is alive with electricity. He balls the sheets in his fists and encourages Len to give more, take more, never stop. Len kisses him quiet and fucks him so good Barry feels like he's going shake apart, and when he does, he'll be a new man.

After, they lay sated on the mussed sheets with the mess of their sex sticky on Barry's skin, but he doesn't mind because Len is still halfway draped over him, peppering his lips and neck and chest with kisses while his fingers swirl lazy circles into his stomach and hips, and occasionally, slip lower to tease him hard again because clearly Len isn't finished yet tonight.

"That felt like our first time," Barry says. "I guess because it's been so long?"

"I hope you're not suggesting we wait months until I follow through on this blowjob I'm planning to give you."

Barry laughs. "Oh my God, no. Give me like ... three more minutes?"

Len's mouth is bliss, and the attention he pays to Barry while they shower and when they climb back into bed, naked and wrapped up in each other, is so heady it's almost as blissful except that there's a fearful voice in the back of Barry's mind that makes him afraid of falling asleep.

"I'm not sure if we can do this again tomorrow morning," Barry says.

"I know," Len answers.

"I wish things could go back to normal."

"They will. Not tomorrow, but they will."

Barry breathes out a deep sigh and nods, and Len kisses him deeply, sweetly. It feels like a promise, and it makes it a just a little easier for Barry to let his eyes close.

o o o

Barry is having a great day - three great days, actually; he's never been so thankful for Thanksgiving before - until he delivers a baby with anencephaly. The baby lives for twenty-three minutes, and then Barry has to take the baby from his mother and to an OR to harvest his organs because that's what his mother said she wanted, still says she wants so her baby can save others, even though she's screaming with grief right now.

The harvesting team is already waiting in the OR, but he can't look at them. He can only look at his tiny patient. They were called when the mother went into labor, and they've been waiting for six hours while she delivered. It's almost vulture-like except their intentions are good. They all have babies at their hospitals waiting for transplants that will save their lives, and this little boy never had a chance. But newborn transplants are grim work.

"We'll start with the stomach," Barry says.

Barry catalogues where each organ goes. The digestive tract to Keystone, the liver to a child here at Children's, a kidney each for twins in Metropolis, and on and on until they come to the last viable organ.

"Lungs," he says.

"Here."

Her voice is like a shot that stops Barry's breath. Iris steps up to the table, her face covered with a surgical mask and eyes full of sorrow and hope and things that Barry doesn't have time to sort out because Caitlin steps up to the table beside Iris.

"Hi, Barry. It's good to see you," she says quietly. She sounds gentle and apologetic when she says, "Let's get these lungs harvested. Ray just called. His patient is critical."

"Right," Barry says. "The lungs."

They don't talk while they work, and because they have a critical patient and Barry needs to close and call the morgue, they can't talk after the surgery either. It's the only reason Barry can keep it together while he stitches up the little boy and wraps him in a blanket and scrubs out. He has to go talk to the boy's mother and tell her how many lives her son saved, how many families don't have to bear the grief she does, but he can't do that yet or he will fall apart. So he goes to the surgeon's lounge only to find it's already occupied.

"Barry," Caitlin says. She stands up and crosses half the room, but stops before she gets to him. "We miss you. I miss you."

Barry shakes his head. "You shouldn't."

"Of course I should. You're my friend, and I'm worried about you."

Barry shakes his head again, more vehemently this time. "No, Cait ..."

When she pulls him into a hug, he crumples against her like a child seeking comfort from an adult he's disappointed. He feels small and weak waiting for her absolution, and even though he doesn't deserve it, he feels so, so, so safe. His tears flow hot and fast and soak through Caitlin's scrubs, and somehow, despite everything, it makes him feel lighter to share this with her.

"Nobody blames you, Barry. Nobody. I swear."

Barry pulls away from the hug and rubs at his eyes and nods. "That's what everyone's been saying for months, but ... I couldn't believe them, you know? I just ... couldn't."

Caitlin makes him sit down on the sofa and buys him a bottle of water from the vending machine and rubs his back while they talk about how she's been doing and how she's on a transplant retrieval team because she's started a fellowship in transplant surgery to specialize her general surgery skills and make her more valuable to the hospital. Barry almost protests that Len would never fire her, but then he gets what she's actually saying and veers away from the topic. Work is her refuge too.

"Iris took the lungs back to CCGH by herself?" Barry asks.

"Yeah. I asked her if she would mind. I wanted to talk to you, and I didn't know if you'd agree to see me another time, so ..."

"Yeah. And, I mean, there's no way Iris would want to stay and talk to me even if she didn't need to get a pair of lungs to Ray."

Caitlin's frown is swift and deep. "When I said no one blames you, that includes Iris. We all miss you, Barry."

Barry stands up quickly and paces around the room. "But I guess that means you're stranded here if she took the ambulance back."

"Well, I was hoping you'd give me a lift. I've never been for a run with the Flash."

Barry blanches at the moniker. "I don't, umm, I don't do that anymore, Caitlin. I don't use my speed." Her lips tilt into the sad, but sympathetic smile she uses with patients. Barry turns away from it because he can't bear to be on the receiving end of it. "But, hey, I swear by Uber. I have a favorite driver. I'll see if she can come for you. She's so witty. You're gonna love her."

"Barry ..."

Her voice is quiet enough that Barry can pretend he didn't hear her.

"I'll do that now, but I also have to go talk to my patient's mom, so ... I guess I'll see you later. Like, for coffee or something this weekend?"

"Yeah, okay," Caitlin says on an exhale. She looks bewildered, and Barry doesn't blame her, but he has to get out of this room that suddenly feels too small.

"Great. I'll text you."

But he can't breathe any easier in the hallway.

o o o

Barry doesn't know how many more times he can watch a Winnie the Pooh movie before he loses his mind, so when Lisa drops Leo off, he hands his nephew off to Len and waits for Leo to settle, then starts up Netflix. His queue is full of kid's movies so he has to scroll a while to find anything two adults might enjoy watching together.

"You watch movies with him?" Len asks, alarmed.

Barry scoffs. "You're not really one of those 'no TV until two' people, are you?"

"Yes, I am. That's the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation. Barry, you're a pediatrician. You know this."

"Yeah. I'm a pediatrician who thinks it's bulls- bull." Len's eyes widen comically. "Come on, Len. For the average parent, that's not reasonable. Sometimes you need ten minutes to close your eyes or grab a sandwich. You can't keep a baby entertained every second of the day without TV. It's unrealistic."

Len glares. "Next you're going to tell me you sleep with him on the couch."

Barry shrugs because he's guilty as charged. "Which movie do you want to watch?"

"Nothing until Leo goes to sleep," Len replies.

Leo is out like a light within five minutes, but they've barely started the movie before Len's phone pings with the special tone he's set for hospital text alerts. His expression hardens as he reads the texts.

"We're okay here if you have to go in," Barry says, reaching for Leo.

"We all have to go in," Len says. He's up and across the room with Leo's diaper bag over his shoulder in half a minute. "Including you."

Barry's heart sinks into his stomach. "No, I -"

Len tosses his phone at Barry while he puts Leo into his carrier and covers it with a blanket to keep him warm in the parking lot. Barry's heart sinks even further as he reads the text. It's not a metahuman attack, exactly. It's worse than that.

o o o

There's no evidence of the mayhem on the drive to the hospital, but they live far enough away from STAR Labs that they probably wouldn't see it anyway. The ER is already bustling when they arrive. Barry escapes it all for a little bit by taking Leo up to daycare and checking him in while Len talks to Sara about emergency procedures, but eventually he has to go back downstairs and help with the traumas and face the friends he hasn't spoken to in months.

On their way in, Len said Mark once mentioned that Eobard had a gorilla. He used it to torture Clyde, somehow. Now they know how. Barry is so angry he wants to throw things across the room and punch walls. That's why he stays in the daycare for a few minutes longer after Leo is happily crawling around with the other babies. He can't walk into a trauma center again for the first time in almost a year in this frame of mind.

But eventually he has to go because the scene in the ER is urgent. This telepathic gorilla that Eobard made part of his plan of terror has killed people and more might die if there aren't enough surgeons in the ER. Barry might only be one more pair of hands, but one more will make the difference to someone.

The first patient he sees is an elderly man with a displaced hip. He's clearly in pain, and hip dislocations can inhibit blood flow, but an intern can monitor him. Barry doesn't know any of the interns, though, because the new cohort started after he left CCGH. He just has to trust that they all know what they're doing.

"You," he says. He points at the cluster of doctors in light blue scrubs who look frightened. He knows what interns look like, and he's not wrong about his group. A woman steps forward, pretending that Barry singled her out, and that's a good sign. He needs a confident intern to stay with this patient. "What's your name?"

"Rosalind Dillon," she says.

"Dr. Dillon is going to stay with you," Barry tells the patient. To the intern, he says, "Monitor him and keep an eye on that leg. Any sign of a blood clot, page ortho."

The trauma board is asking for a peds consult in bed two, so that's where Barry goes. Shawna is with the patient. If she's surprised to see Barry here, she doesn't show it. She presents immediately, no pause for breath or pleasantries. Barry understands why Len likes working with her so much.

"Ivy Lynne, five-years-old, presents with ..." Shawna stumbles over her words, then decides a demonstration is better and lifts the blanket covering the girl. She's levitating an inch off the gurney. "The EMT said a witness saw the gorilla throw their car off an overpass. Firefighters are still trying to get the mom out. Ivy doesn't have a scratch on her."

Barry is used to treating metahuman children. More and more have shown up at Children's, sometimes because their parents think their abilities are illnesses. To be fair, many of them do seem that way on the surface. If they'd been children, Barry, Hartley, and Cisco probably would have been taken to a doctor too for their symptoms: excessive hunger from an increased metabolism, tinnitus from enhanced hearing, hallucinations. Mostly, the parents who care enough to take their kids to multiple doctors and fight the red tape of insurance to get them into a specialized hospital are overwhelmingly relieved that their children are special, not sick. He hopes that her mom, if she survives, is one of them.

Ivy is small for five. She has sun-kissed brown skin and halo of black curls spread out around her head dotted with little yellow bows that are askew after the ordeal she's been through. She's wearing a nice peacoat with a few buttons ripped off, and she's a missing boot. Her bare foot is covered in bright yellow tights. Shawna knows her name because she's wearing a medical alert bracelet with her name, blood type, and a warning that she's allergic to iodine, latex, and anesthesia.

Barry is halfway through the physical exam - checking her belly for free fluid - when Ivy blinks open honey brown eyes that go wide with fear. She grabs ahold of Barry's wrist with a vice-like grip.

"Hi, Ivy," Barry says softly. "My name is Dr. Allen. How are you feeling?"

Ivy swallows thickly, and she's trembling when she reaches up to remove the oxygen mask that prevents her from speaking. Barry helps her loosen it and push it down.

"I'm supposed to show you this." She holds her arm straight in the air and shakes her wrist.

"That's right. You are supposed to show me that. It's good that you remember that. How are you feeling, Ivy?"

She starts when Jax sprints past bed two in the direction of the elevator. Barry blocks out his worry about the patient with Dr. Dillion. Len wouldn't have allowed her into the program if she wasn't capable, so Barry has to trust that she's capable today.

"O-okay," Ivy says. She trembles again.

"You're being very brave, Ivy," Barry assures her.

Barry keeps her talking while he finishes the exam by asking her if she remembers what happened and if there's anyone she wants to come to the hospital to stay with her. Of course, she wants her mom, but he also learns that her father died several years ago. She has a brother, and she can recite his cell phone number, so they'll call the brother later.

"Have you ever had an X-Ray before, Ivy?" The little girl shakes her head. "An X-Ray is when we take a picture of your insides to make sure you don't have any broken bones. It's kind of fun." Ivy perks up a little bit at the suggestion, and Barry hopes she's not one of the kids who cries because the table is cold - if she even lays _on_ the table - or is afraid of the sound of the machine. "Dr. Baez is going to take you to get the pictures taken, okay? Then I'm going to come see you again when we look at the pictures."

Ivy is calm enough when Shawna wheels her away, so Barry goes looking for another case. The ER is surprisingly orderly considering they're treating patients injured by a marauding, telepathic gorilla. It's nothing as chaotic as when the _Waverider_ crash landed, maybe because they know what's happening, and even though it's insane, at least they have some information.

He mostly triages for the next hour - broken arms, first degree burns, face lacerations are sent to the clinic where the patients can wait and the nurses can observe - but he doesn't take any of the surgeries. He steps aside and lets surgeons who actually work here go down to the ORs. He wants to avoid having patients here, which would mean he has to come back daily to check on them. He can be here today, but not everyday.

"Where do you need me?" he asks the nurse at the trauma station.

"There's a trauma two minutes out. A woman who's been trapped in her car on the interstate for a couple hours. She's coded twice on the way here."

Barry has a sinking feeling that it's Ivy Lynne's mom, and if she's coding already, there might not be much they can do for her. He heads outside into the chilly December air to wait for the rig. Iris is there too.

"You're my assist?"

"Yeah, umm ... But I don't have to -"

"No, it's fine. You're a good doctor, and it sounds like I'm going to need all the help I can get."

Whatever Caitlin says, it sounds a lot like Iris is angry at Barry, and she has good reason to be. They don't say anything else until the ambulance arrives, and then it can be all about the medicine. Lisa, Martin, and Joe join them as the EMTs are pulling the gurney down from the back of the rig.

"Rose Lynne, thirty-eight, crushed in her car after it was thrown off an overpass." The EMT rattles off a list of vitals, none of which are good, but Barry is determined. He's not going to tell Ivy that her mom died. He's not going to make her an orphan.

"Trauma Room 5 is open," Barry says, as they wheel Rose Lynne into the ER.

Because there are so many surgeons crowded around the bed and no cardio surgeon, Barry takes it upon himself to observe her cardiac distress, which they know is acute, until someone from cardio is free.

"She has blood in the belly," Joe announces.

"A broken pelvis," Lisa says, "and her tibia has been crushed. She's losing circulation in her toes."

Barry drowns it all out with his stethoscope and Rose's heartbeat, but what he hears isn't good. "She's tamponade!"

Everything else is put on hold for a cardiac ultrasound, and then a syringe for pericardiocentesis. Without being asked, every surgeon around the table places their hands on Rose to hold her still, just in case the pain brings her back to consciousness. It does not, and that's a bad sign.

"She's not going to survive surgery in this state," Iris says.

"She'll die without surgery," Barry argues, even though he knows Iris is right.

"Why didn't anyone mention this patient is pregnant?" Joe asks.

Everyone turns to him, and after the moment of shock passes, Barry fights his way through the crowded room and motions for the ultrasound. With all the lap pads and thermal blankets she came in with, it hid what they can all see now that they've cut away Rose's dress. Barry hates measuring on portable ultrasounds, but he has to guess.

"Damn it. We can't take the baby out yet. She's probably only twenty weeks."

"Okay, so the plan is the same," Iris says. "We do what we can here, and then we move her up to ICU and wait to see if she's stable in six hours."

Barry stays with Rose while they wheel her up to ICU. He updates her chart with possible allergies to iodine, latex, and anesthesia, and then he sits with her until Shawna finds him to tell him Ivy's X-Rays are clear. She doesn't have a scratch on her, inside or out.

"That doesn't mean she's not wounded," Barry says, on the way to the lightroom so he can look at her X-Rays himself.

o o o

The stream of patients into the ER slows considerably as the hours wear on. All Barry wants is to get out of here, but he can't do that yet. He needs to find Len, but first he should check on Rose's condition. If she's circling the drain, he might have to suck it up and camp out all night. The idea of someone else telling Ivy what happened doesn't sit right with him.

He leaves Ivy in a room in the peds ward. He admitted her because she's going to need some place safe and quiet to stay until her mom's condition is clear. He put in her chart that she has depressed breathing sounds and irritation around the larynx from inhaled debris, and that should be enough to keep the Lynne's insurance company off the back of whoever ends up dealing with them. The more he refreshes Rose's chart, the more he's worried that's going to be a grandparent or aunt or social worker.

"She's not good," Barry says.

He wishes he hadn't found Iris in Rose's room. He can try to make it about the medicine, try to keep things impersonal between them, but with an unconscious patient an inch away from becoming a lost cause, there's not much to say about the medicine.

"No," Iris agrees. "Is there any chance of saving the baby?"

Barry shakes his head. "I did a more thorough ultrasound after we brought her up here. She's actually at nineteen weeks."

"Oh no." Iris lays her hand on Rose's leg. "We don't know who to call. Her phone was completely destroyed, and the rescue crew didn't find a purse or wallet."

"She has a son we can call, but I doubt he's much older than Ivy. I'll get a social worker to bring him in."

Iris heaves a sigh. "God, I hate these cases."

"Will you keep me updated?"

Something like anger flashes through Iris's eyes, and it's not about the medicine anymore. "Yes, Barry. I will keep you updated," Iris snaps. "That is, if you'll take my calls."

He doesn't try to stop her from leaving or explain himself. He should do that, but not right now while they have a patient that will almost certainly die if they don't do surgery and almost certainly will die if they do and her young daughter is alone and scared in the peds wing and her young son doesn't even know his family is in the hospital yet.

The hospital social workers are happy, and then very sad, to see Barry. After Ivy recites her address and the name of her brother's school, Cecile says that she'll take care of finding Rose's son and bring him to the hospital, then page Barry when he's here. It's going to be a long night so he sends a text to Len, and Len replies to say he's in the ER talking to Sara. Barry doesn't have anything better to do right now, so he goes downstairs to see if he can help.

The ER is emptied out now, hours after the gorilla's attack. From news reports playing on TVs in the patient rooms he passes, the Army subdued the gorilla with the help of plastic explosives - so, with Bette's help - and, apparently, the Burning Man, which is baffling to Barry unless the Burning Man works at STAR Labs and no one ever suspected. Everyone has been treated and admitted or released. The patients in the ER now are the typical cases.

Len and Sara are talking to a teenager who looks pretty strung out. Barry waits by the nurses' station.

"Barry! Hey, buddy, it's great to see you back."

Barry starts at the slap on the back, but he recovers and plasters on a grin that he hopes hides how exhausted he is. "Yeah, thanks. It's not permanent or anything."

"Still. We've missed you." Barry only nods, and it's a clue that he's not up for a conversation that's read, understood, and respected. "You have a good night, Barry."

"Yeah. You too, Eddie."

Eddie walks out the doors backwards, flashing Barry a smile that's vibrant and compassionate.

Barry turns back to the ER. Len and Sara aren't finished with the teenager yet. Kara is stitching up a head lac. Mick and Caitlin are in a trauma room debrieding a wound, and since it looks like their patient is unconscious - a blessing given that the majority of his chest is burned - they're talking like everything is normal, like this city hasn't seen metahuman attacks and crashing timeships and telepathic gorillas, and for just a second, he's jealous, and then he remembers that whatever grief he feels, it's not as deep or permanent as Caitlin's, and then he only feels shame.

o o o

Barry tells his Chief at Children's that he has privileges as CCGH again on Monday, and her reaction is chilly. Fortunately, Barry has experience in that area, and he waits out the terse, monotone ruminations on how the hospital has invested in him and how his patients rely on him and how they've provided him with opportunities to shine without a cloud of scandal hanging over him. That last one gets Barry's blood pressure up, but he a second later, he can't summon the will to argue against the sleight.

"I understand," Barry says simply. "Attending rounds are scheduled for 9 and 6 at CCGH so my time there shouldn't interfere with my surgical schedule or rounds here."

Then he leaves her office without being excused.

o o o

It's a little easier to walk into CCGH each time he visits. His presence isn't a shock anymore, and his unwillingness to talk about his absence has gotten around, so the most he hears about it now is, "Hey, Barry. Good to see you," and he can handle that.

Plus, Ivy is a fantastic patient. Because she's not sick, she's a delight in the playroom with the real peds patients. She's taken it upon herself to dress up as their doctor - Len gave her the smallest lab coat available and an old medical bag - and prescribe them things like ten hugs from a teddy bear and two coloring book pages and one storytime.

Barry is late for rounds on Tuesday because the bus got delayed, and he finds Ivy tagging along beside Len and Kara while they round on patients. Barry stays quiet and hovers outside the door.

"Dr. Ivy, would you like to present?" Len asks.

"Yes, I would, Dr. Len." She pretends to tap on a tablet, but she's only holding a pad of paper. "William Beck - who likes to be called Liam so let's update that in the chart, Dr. Kara - presents with an upset tummy, dizzies, fainting spells, and rash. Labs showed, umm, elevated, uh ..." Len leans down and whispers in her ear. "Labs showed elevated white blood cells, but not significant. I recommend follow-up lab work with CDC -"

"B," Len whispers.

"Yes, C _B_ C and hippo panel."

Kara bites her lip to keep from laugh. "Also, a lipid panel."

"Yes," Ivy says, "that. And, umm, pet? Did you say pet?"

"Yes, a PET scan," Len tells Ivy. Then he addresses Liam and his parents, who don't look disturbed by Ivy being there, but the words PET scan put panic in their eyes, which means they must be peds ward veterans. "I don't know if the cancer is back," Len says to them, "but if it is, I want to find it and start treatment today."

Kara spots Barry lingering by the door and excuses herself from the conversation. "Hey, Barry. Did Cecile text you? They finally found Ivy's brother. He went home with a friend when Rose didn't pick him up after school. He was pretty scared, of course. Cecile said she would excuse him from school, but he decided to go anyway."

"I'll make sure I'm here to meet him tonight."

"I just hope his mom is still here so he can say goodbye." Tears fill her eyes, and she looks like she's a million light years away. "Goodbyes are important."

Barry takes Ivy back to her room after she's finished presenting Liam's case, and she's much more subdued once she's perched on her bed. Barry logs this as rounding on Ivy, sets his tablet aside, and takes a seat on the bed. She clutches a stuffed dog Len bought her from the gift shop.

"It looks like you're having fun with Dr. Snart and Dr. Danvers."

Ivy nods, sending her curls flying. Someone has found a bright yellow headband to keep her hair off her face. "Yes. They're nice to me."

"How are you feeling, Ivy?" Her mouth twists, and she bites her lower lip. He hasn't seen a kid so worried about looking happy in a long time. "Whatever you're feeling, it's okay. I promise I won't be mad or disappointed in you."

She draws in a shuddering breath. "Did my mommy die?"

"No. No, she didn't die. But she is very, very sick."

"I'm scared, and I'm sad." She starts to rise off the bed, just barely hovering over the blankets. "I don't like being here alone."

"Your brother will be back tonight, and I'm going to stay here for awhile today, okay? We can do anything you want until bedtime. We can keep talking, or we can watch Sid the Science Kid, or -"

"Read me a story?" Ivy asks. "No one reads me stories here."

"Yeah. Yeah, I can totally do that. What's your favorite book?"

She jumps down from the bed - although it's really more like gliding through the air because she never touches the mattress - and runs to the window where she's stashed a book that would normally stay in the playroom. She dashes back across the room, shoves it into his hands, and leaps onto her bed again. Barry feels like he's been punched in the chest. He balances the book in shaky hands and tries to just breathe and not let his thoughts get away from him.

"Dr. Barry," Ivy says, insistently. She pats the bed beside her. "You have to sit here when you read books to kids."

Barry obeys her request, and she snuggles up against him when he does, then he opens _The Runaway Dinosaur_ and begins to read.

o o o

Len's back hits the on call room door hard enough that Barry is afraid he's being too rough, but it doesn't stop Len from licking into his mouth and tugging off Barry's scrub shirt and dipping his palms down the front of his pants.

"What's the occasion?" Len asks.

Barry doesn't really want to say. It's one of those things that they both love about each other, but have never talked about openly while they're hard and half naked. So instead he sinks to his knees and blows Len right there against the door like they used to do when Barry was Len's student and they loved each other but couldn't say it.

"Touch me," Barry says frantically, pulling at the ties on his scrub pants to get them off.

Len is still shaky from the blowjob, but he obliges. They tumble onto the bed, and Barry makes a mess of the sheets by writhing around and being as wanton as he feels, because it feels good to feel so good again. It doesn't really register with Barry that's he's working on his third orgasm and he can't do that without the speedforce until he's coming again, and Len doesn't show any signs of stopping, and actually, Barry is completely okay with a fourth time.

"What's the occasion?" Len asks again. Barry's breath is too fast to answer coherently, so he just shakes his head and waves his hand at Len, but Len isn't going to let it go. "To be clear, I'm not complaining. I love it when you beg for me to make you feel good. I'm just curious. What's the occasion?"

Barry throws an arm over his eyes and groans. "I love how good you are with the kids?"

He peeks over at Len, sees him open and close his mouth twice, and decides that it is definitely an inappropriate reason to jump his husband. Barry knew there was something creepy about that whole "gaybies" craze a couple years ago.

"Are you saying this was about your instinctual desire to procreate?" Len asks, and he's almost laughing.

Barry drops his arm. "Don't be an ass! I think it's actually about our instinctual need for a partner who is caring, but you know, thanks for the feminization."

Barry starts to get up, but Len drags him back down and kisses his neck in just the right spot to make Barry forget how offended he is.

"You're right," Len says. "A good caregiver is a desirable partner in every society. And I don't think you're feminine." His grin is impish and dark, and Barry knows he's not going to like what comes out of his mouth next. "Your cock is my favorite part of your anatomy -"

Barry smacks his arm and gets up to pick his clothes off the floor. "Why did I marry you?" he asks without heat.

Len chuckles deeply. "I'm an excellent caregiver."

"Asshole."

"I like that part of you too."

"Shut up!"

Barry throws Len's scrubs at him and pulls on his own.

"I can't wait until we're dads and you can see what an _excellent caregiver_ I am every day."

He flips Len off when he leaves the room, and all he gets in return is a long, loud laugh that he never would have heard back when they used do this in the early days of their relationship. Barry wouldn't trade in that sound for anything, not even a less incorrigible sense of humor.

o o o

When Barry comes to check on Ivy Wednesday morning, he gets two pieces of news.

The first is that Rose Lynne died during the night. Iris tells him when he stops by the ICU to check on Rose. Barry feels a deep sense of regret that he hasn't met her son before today. Despite all his intentions to stick around in the evenings, he's been called in for emergency consults on metahuman kids too often this week.

"The kids are upstairs," Iris says. "Len is with them, and he said you should come up right away when you get here."

"Yeah, I'll do that."

"Barry," Iris says, just as he turns to leave. "Can we ...?"

He nods. "We'll talk."

"Yeah."

Ivy's brother looks a lot like her. Their features are different, but there's an expression around the eyes and mouth that makes their connection unmistakable. He's around ten or eleven with the same warm brown skin, but his eyes are hazel green and his hair is clipped short.

"Dr. Barry!" Ivy says. It's a little too bright, like she doesn't understand or has momentarily forgotten that her mom died last night. At five, she isn't quite old enough to hold the concept of death permanently in her mind. "This is my big brother. Come say hi."

There is deep sadness in the boy's eyes, but he speaks politely and confidently.

"Thank you for taking such good care of my sister, Dr. Allen."

Barry swallows the lump in his throat. "We're going to take care of you too, Michael."

o o o

Christmas on the peds ward is Barry's favorite time of year. There are garlands around the nurses' station, candy cane wreaths on all the doors, snowflakes hanging from the ceilings, and in the playroom, an incredible train set zooming around the festive room. Santa comes every week to hear wishes from all the new patients. It's Dr. Jesse, because the kids inevitably request things like new kidneys and for their cancer to be gone and to feel better, and they need a child psychologist to respond appropriately. Children's doesn't do Christmas the same way as CCGH, and Barry finds himself actually looking forward to visiting the hospital twice a day.

Hartley is already on the elevator when the doors slide open. He doesn't look up from his tablet.

"You want to come up and see peds? They finished decorating last night. It looks _amazing_ ," Barry says.

Hartley doesn't answer.

"Umm ... Everything okay?"

The corner of Hartley's lip curls. "Fuck off, Barry."

"Whoa. Dude. What?"

Hartley finally looks up from his tablet. His eyes are hard, and his words are a snarl. "Talk to me in seven months. I might have forgiven you by then."

The words hit him like a punch, and Barry takes a step back. "I ... deserve that. I totally deserve that." But he hadn't expected it. "Listen, I know you were close. You worked on the same service for years. But I didn't mean to get Ronnie killed."

Hartley's expression shifts, softens for a just a second, before it hardens again. "I'm talking about your disappearing act, or did my reference to seven months not clue you in?"

That's been the pattern with Barry's friends. No one thinks he's responsible for Ronnie's death, but they all feel varying degrees of emotions about his self-inflicted isolation. He can't say that he blames them, but he's not sure they should really blame him either.

"I'm sorry about that too," Barry says. "Axel must have told you -"

"Axel never told me about any of his patients," Hartley snaps. He stares dead ahead. "He doesn't tell me anything now anyway. We broke up."

"No way. You guys were perfect for each other and so in love. Hart, what happened?"

"Do you care?" Hartley asks waspishly. "Because you didn't care to answer any of my calls or texts when it happened. You didn't care to help me decide if I should take an attending position in Star City when Laurel offered it to me. You didn't care at all, did you?"

The elevator doors slide open, and Hartley exits in a hurry. Barry squeezes through the closing doors even though they're not on the right floor. He follows Hartley into the ENT lab and is somewhat heartened that he doesn't protest.

"Hartley, I can't tell you how sorry I am that I wasn't there for you. I have my reasons, and I'll tell you about them if you want to hear, but I don't want to sound like I'm making excuses for being a bad friend."

Hartley doesn't say anything, but he turns halfway to Barry, and Barry decides to take that as a sign that he can continue.

"I've been ..." The word is so, so hard to say. "I've been depressed ... and triggered and grieving for Ronnie and for my mom because the way he died was so similar and for the life I should have had, but Eobard stole from me, for all the friends I didn't think I deserved anymore, and ..." Barry's vision is blurry, but he can see Hartley turn fully to face him and that there's no hard edges left in him. "I've been having nightmares about it and ..." Barry runs his hands through his hair. "God, this sounds so much like I'm asking for pity, and I don't deserve it because I never learn my lesson. I keep running, I keep getting people I love killed. I -"

The wind is knocked out of Barry when Hartley hugs him. It's tight, just the way Barry needs when he feels like he's cracking into a hundred pieces, and long and caring, and although everything between them has been platonic for years, Barry remembers why he turned to Hartley for comfort the last time he felt this low.

"Thank you," Barry whispers.

"You asshole," Hartley says. "I didn't even get a quarter through the tirade I had planned for you."

"You want to keep going?" Barry asks with a laugh.

"See. You're an asshole."

They sit at the lab table for awhile, Hartley fiddling with a new design for a hearing aid and Barry eating all the snacks Hartley has always kept stashed in this lab specifically to keep Barry from complaining about being hungry when he's keeping Hartley company. That he didn't clear out the snacks means a great deal to Barry, but he doesn't belabor the point. Hartley wouldn't appreciate it.

"Don't you have a couple fake patients to fake round on?"

"Yes," Barry says, polishing off an Oreo. "Have you met them?"

"Everyone has met them. You've put in a request for a new consult every day this week for a completely fake problem. They both passed their hearing tests with flying colors, by the way. I had Cecile Horton in my office after grilling me on why you thought they might be deaf."

"What did you say?"

"That you're a quack."

There's no heat to the insult, nor to Barry's when he says, "I don't have to take this abuse. I'm leaving."

"Drinks this week? I can't talk about Axel unless I'm drunk."

"Definitely."

o o o

Barry is half an hour into a hernia repair when his phone beeps, and a nurse tells him it's a meeting reminder. He's supposed to be in Cecile's office talking about his unethical hospitalization of two children who do not need to be hospitalized. He's about to get his wrist slapped in a bad way, and the only defense he has is that as soon as they're discharged, they have to go into foster care, and it tears Barry apart to send kids to foster care.

"Can you text Len and tell him I'll be an hour late?" Barry asks.

"Who's Len?" the nurse asks.

Barry does a double take, but then he remembers that this isn't CCGH where everybody knows everything about everybody else's life. This nurse has never met Len, never seen them walking through the halls, never watched them perform surgery together like they're dancing as much as operating.

"My husband," Barry says. "He's in my contacts as Len. Please tell him I'm finishing up a hernia repair and will be an hour late to the meeting with the social worker."

No one around the operating table asks if they're speaking to a social worker for professional or personal reasons because no one knows that they've been thinking about starting a family for over a year. They finish up the surgery in near silence and go their separate ways. Barry is almost looking forward to his ethics being called into question, if only because he'll surely see a friendly face before or after.

o o o

He ends up being closer to an hour and forty-five minutes late, but Cecile doesn't bat an eyelash when Barry and Len knock on her door. She works with surgeons all day, and she knows that if they're late, it's because someone's life - in their cases, a child's life - hangs in the balance, and she's perfectly happy to wait.

"Why don't we go see Michael and Ivy?" Cecile says. "I think this conversation would go much better with them in the room."

Barry doesn't like the look of the thick folder Cecile carries up to Ivy's room, but he appreciates that she stands back and gives them some time to say hello.

"Dr. Barry!" Ivy cries. She bounces off her bed and throws herself into Barry's arms. "I've missed you. You didn't come read to me last night."

"I can read to you now, Ivy," Michael says. He closes the cover of his laptop slowly. He looks nervous. His eyes keep darting to Cecile, who is a kind woman but an ominous presence. "You're discharging us, aren't you?"

"Are you working on your experiment for the science fair?" Len asks. "I'm still voting for the desert ecosphere."

Michael rolls his eyes. "Because it's the only one you can help me with. It doesn't matter anyway, though. I'm probably not going back to my school. You don't pick foster families based on school districts, do you?"

"Not really," Cecile says. "But I'm also not here to talk about foster families."

Barry feels so far behind. Partly because Cecile is hedging about foster care, but also because somewhere along the way, Len spent time helping Michael with science fair projects and teaching Ivy how to round on patients. He missed all of that while he was at Children's, and it's upsetting.

Cecile is kind, but direct when she addresses children and teenagers. It's why Barry wanted her on this case. "I'd like to talk about your family."

Michael's expression, usually so kind and sorrowful, goes blank. He wraps an arm around Ivy and holds her tightly. "I told you. We don't have any family who can take us in."

"Your grandmother's nursing home called yesterday to tell me she was having a lucid day. I went to see her. She told me you have a stepfather."

"She's confused," Michael says. "She has Alzheimer's."

"Okay," Cecile says patiently. "You haven't said anything about the father of your mother's baby."

Michael's hard expression falters. He's bewildered, stricken, confused. Cecile leans back in her chair, her stern demeanor shifting into compassion and regret. He didn't know.

"Mommy had a baby?" Ivy asks. She looks between Michael and Barry, not sure who can answer her question. "Is it a brother or a sister?"

"No," Michael says. He sounds pained. He strokes Ivy's curls and she leans into him. "She didn't."

"Michael, I'm so sorry to ask this," Cecile says, "but do you know who your grandmother might have been referring to?"

The hard edge is back on Michael's face. It's stark and frightening to see on a ten-year-old. He holds Ivy closer, and she doesn't protest the tight grip. It's all too obvious that he does know and he doesn't want to say.

"Our mom wasn't married," Michael says. It's not an answer; it's a smart deflection.

Barry is surprised to hear Len interject, seemingly on Cecile's side too. "We legally have to tell him that your mom and the baby died," Len says. "Since her phone was destroyed, and you won't tell us his name, we can't do that. We can't search your phone without your permission. Or a warrant."

Cecile flashes Len a sharp look, but Barry has to bite the inside of his lip to keep from smiling, especially when it's clear that Michael gets the message too. He really is a smart kid. A little too smart, actually. It leaves an ominous feeling in Barry's gut.

"I can't think of who my grandmother was referring to. Like I said, she has Alzheimer's. She gets confused," Michael says defiantly.

Cecile crosses her arms over her chest. "Dr. Snart, Dr. Allen, can I have a word outside?"

She leaves the room and waits in the hallway in front of the window overlooking Ivy's room. Michael's hands are shaking where he's holding onto his little sister. Len touches his shoulder and gives him a reassuring nod.

"Protecting her will get easier."

Michael draws in a deep breath. "We don't come from that kind of family. It's just that this guy ... He doesn't even live with us or anything. He's just ... He wouldn't be able to take us, right?"

There's no perfect answer to that. It depends on a lot of things, like how hard he fights for custody. Family and family friends are the preferred placement for orphaned children. Len's brow is furrowed and the corners of his mouth dip down. He knows this too, and he knows how easily a happy family can become _that kind of family_.

"Maybe," Barry says. "So it's probably a good thing you don't know who your grandmother was talking about."

Out in the hallway, Cecile fixes them with a stern look. "It's time to discharge them. They're obviously not sick. I'm going to start the paperwork to get them a foster home, and when I do, you're going to sign discharge papers. Are we clear?"

"What about the mom's boyfriend?" Len asks.

"Well, I'm obviously not going to release them into the custody of someone they're afraid of," Cecile snaps. She taps her foot and considers the middle distance. "It's been five days and no one has called or showed up at the hospital asking about Rose. I don't think this guy, whoever he is, will be an issue. But if he becomes one, it's my job to protect children." She fixes Len with a stern look. "Don't forget that again."

Cecile doesn't wait for their confirmation that they'll discharge the kids, but she doesn't let them argue with her either. When it comes down to it, they don't have a lot of choice. Even as Chief, Len can't keep just anyone he wants in the hospital. Michael and Ivy are going into foster care, whether they like it or not, and very soon.

o o o

Barry finds Iris on his way out of the hospital and co-opts her into babysitting duty. She pretends to hate the idea at first - she's been in surgery all day, she's hungry, she's tired - but then he holds up Leo, and she melts.

They can walk from the hospital to Iris and Eddie's apartment, which is good because Barry hates taking Leo on the bus and the weather is mild and enjoyable for the middle of December and the Christmas lights and tree have gone up around downtown. Leo sleeps snugly against Barry's chest, his small head topped with the panda ears cap Iris bought him, which is maybe what changed her mind about babysitting.

"I've never babysat," Iris says. "Ever. Not even in high school."

"The benefit," the word is a question mark, "of being an only child? Except you're not."

"No, I'm not. I couldn't believe it when my dad told me. I still can't sometimes. Wally comes over for dinner once a week, or I'll see him in the ER, and it's like ... Oh, you're my brother. It's a surprise every time I think it."

"A good surprise?"

"Incredible. I've always loved Wally. He's the best EMT we have. He's going to be a great trauma surgeon when he's finished with med school."

"Wait, what?"

"Yeah, he's been working night shifts so he can go to med school. I'm so proud of him. I think I'm really going to like this whole sibling thing."

"It's pretty great."

Iris gives him a strange look, but then plasters on a smile. "I didn't realize you and Lisa were that close."

"It's been a work in progress."

They climb the steps up to Iris and Eddie's apartment and are met with the spicy scent of cumin and the sizzle of cooking meat. Eddie is darting around the kitchen frantically in a blue-striped apron. His smile falters when he sees Barry, but then he hitches it back into place.

"Barry! It's so great to see you. Tonight. When I'm only cooking enough food for two people." Iris puts on an innocent expression and shrugs her shoulders. "I'll call in an order."

"No, guys, you don't have to," Barry says. "I intruded on your night. We can go."

"We?" Eddie asks, his head popping around the dining room wall. The instant he spots Leo, he's on his way to steal him from Barry. "Hey, there, little guy!"

It's another forty minutes before Eddie actually calls in their take-out order because he's too busy bouncing and tickling and playing with Leo. Iris and Barry finish up the cooking because Eddie abandoned the skirt steak sizzling on the stove top grill and the roasting vegetables and pack it all away in Tupperware.

"I wish I had babysat in high school," Iris says glumly.

"What's going on?"

Iris gestures into the living room where Eddie is flat on his back with Leo dangling, kicking, and squealing above him. "I didn't even know babies liked that."

"Iris, are you ..."

"No! No, I'm not. But ... we've talked about it, and ... I don't know. I'm so clueless."

"Well, not clueless. You're a doctor. That's a good start."

"That's a terrible start, Barry! I'm a trauma surgeon. I'm basically on call twenty-four-seven."

"Not really?" Iris shakes her head, like he's insane for disagreeing. "You're only on call that much because you volunteer. You could pull back some, if you wanted to." Now she looks angry. "Not that I'm saying you, or anyone, should. But if you wanted to, or if Eddie wanted to, you or he could."

Iris cocks her head to the side, and a grin quirks up the corner of her mouth. "Sound like you've been thinking about it a lot."

Barry doesn't want to broach that subject right now. He's talked to Len about it, and they're in a good place and he can be at peace with that, but he can't banter about it.

"So we skipped right past you being mad at me, huh?"

She eyes him steadily, but gives up the topic. "Hartley told me he gave you an earful, and I think once is enough for you to get the point, right?"

"Yes, and thank you."

Eddie lays Leo down to sleep when their food arrives well past eight, and he has to keep laying Leo down because the baby is having none of the adults talking while he's supposed to sleep. If this is what Cisco and Lisa go through every night, no wonder Lisa gets so upset about Leo liking to sleep on Len. Finally, Eddie compromises with a balancing act. Leo settles in to sleep on his lap, and Eddie twists in weird ways to make sure none of his Pad Thai splatters onto Leo's blanket.

"This is a lot of work," Eddie comments.

"Ours will go to bed when he's supposed to," Iris says.

"I thought you didn't know anything about babies," Barry says defensively. "What makes you so sure you can get one to go to bed when literally no one but Len can convince Leo to sleep?"

Iris holds up her palms. "All I was saying is that when we have kids, we'll have rules and a schedule. We won't have our friends babysitting at 8pm on a weeknight."

Eddie glances between Barry and Iris nervously. For some reason, he thinks interjecting will diffuse the situation. "I think Lisa and Cisco are doing the best they can. I don't think we could do any better."

"I'm not criticizing," Iris says, although she is. "I'm just saying that I want our hypothetical future children to have a set schedule and for one of us to be home with them every night, like my dad was for me."

There's a reason Joe could be home at 7pm every night to spend time with Iris, and it's the reason no one ever considered him for general surgery chief until a few years ago. He sacrificed OR time and tough cases and research, and that's so commendable, but Iris is ambitious, and although Eddie doesn't know it yet, he's about to be offered cardio chief, officially. There is no set schedule in their future.

"Hypothetical?" Eddie asks, his voice rising.

Barry decides that's his cue to leave. This reunion with Iris has gone completely off the rails. He's inadvertently started a fight between her and Eddie, and he feels more distance between himself and Iris than he has in a long time. It feels like they're on different paths now, and he's not sure why that is when they're both at the point of thinking about starting families, but it feels a lot like they're about to diverge, and once they do, he's not sure how they find common ground again.

Leo is a comforting weight and warmth against his chest as he walks back to the hospital to see if Lisa or Cisco is done with their surgery and able to take Leo home. If not, he might be staying the night with his uncles because they have an unofficial rule that Leo isn't woken and moved after 10pm if he's with family.

"You know he's a baby, not a stuffed animal," Mick says.

"What?" Barry asks. He's caught off guard. He didn't even see Mick coming toward him on the sidewalk.

"The way you're holding the little guy, it's like you're looking for comfort. What's wrong, kid?"

Mick puts two fingers against Leo's cheek to make sure he's not cold, but it's still pretty temperate out, then places a hand on Barry's shoulder and guides Barry onto a bench outside the ER entrance.

"Talk to me, kid. That look on your face is making me worry."

"You worry?" Barry asks. "You're also so ... solid."

Mick snorts a laugh. "You'd get the joke if you'd known me as a resident. Got written up for punching a patient. Twice. Same patient, two different ER visits. So I know a thing or two about turmoil. Talk."

The final word is a command Barry can't ignore, but he doesn't want to. "I'm not sure Iris and I are friends anymore. Everything feels so strained. Even when we're good, it's not like it used to be. Honestly, even before all of this changed me, it wasn't the same."

Mick nods slowly. It takes him a long time to respond, like he's deciding if he wants to tell Barry something. "I grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and became a doctor. I went into plastic surgery with this face. I watched my two best friends fall in love with nerdy residents and get their happy endings. Or as happy as life ever gets. I've been an outsider my whole life. So I get it."

"I didn't realize we made you feel that way. I'm so sorry, Mick."

Mick shakes his head. "It's no one's fault. I've been unlucky in love. Who can blame the girls for being wary? I've got this face."

It's meant to be a joke, but Barry can't quite let it pass as one. "You're handsome, Mick."

Mick arches an eyebrow. "You hitting on me, kid?" Barry does laugh this time. "Because I'm flattered, but I don't swing that way."

"Noted."

"What I'm saying," Mick says, "is that friends aren't alike forever. People change. You become an outsider in different ways. Because of the career you pick or the specialty or because a particle accelerator explodes or you see one too many traumas. Friendship isn't about being alike. It's about finding a person who doesn't make you feel like an outsider even though you are."

It's not a sunshine-and-daisies piece of advice, but it's good advice. It's a place to start. Barry hopes Iris can agree with him on that, if nothing else.

o o o

"I hate working at Children's," Barry announces. He hurls himself onto their bed, upsetting the suit jacket and coat Len has laid there. Len tuts at him. "The Chief is impossible. First she's angry that I have a patient at another hospital, and then she's mad I'm at the hospital too long on Christmas Eve. Capping surgical hours is bullshit, and so is not having residents. I miss my residents."

"Then come back to CCGH," Len says. He finishes tying his bowtie and turns away from the mirror. "You need to get dressed. The party starts in twenty minutes."

"Would it really be that simple?"

"I've already laid out your clothes. I'll do your bowtie."

"No, I mean to come back."

Len's fingers pause where he's still fiddling with his bowtie, but only for a second. "It's up to Ray, but I doubt he'd say no. He's already told me he's not offering attending to his fellow when her term is done which means we still haven't filled the opening you turned down."

"That's a long time to be short a peds surgeon. You haven't told Ray to look for a surgeon who's already an attending?"

"We're a teaching hospital. It should go to someone finishing up their fellowship."

"And I haven't quite finished a year as an attending, so technically ... Len, have you been holding the position for me?"

Len perches on the end of the bed, and Barry sits up so he can wrap his arm around his husband's waist and hook his chin over his shoulder. Len leans back into him, presumably unconcerned with wrinkling his suit.

"I knew you'd change your mind."

Barry kisses his shoulder. "You're the best." Barry bounces off the bed, though, and grabs the suit hanging from the closet door. "I'm making us late, aren't I?"

"As usual."

They're not too late to the annual Surgeons Christmas Eve party, but Cisco and Lisa arrive well over an hour late, and it occurs to Barry for the first time that this is a really inconvenient day and time for a party. It says something about their priorities that an annual gala is held on the night parents want to tuck in their kids and promise them Santa is coming and fill up stockings and bring the big gifts out of hiding.

"Let's never have this party on Christmas Eve again," Barry murmurs to Len.

"Is it awful I didn't think this through until they walked in?" Len asks.

Barry hedges, but then says, "It's awful that no one has ever considered it."

To their credit, Cisco and Lisa don't seem to hold it against anyone, and as usual, Cisco is the heart of the party because he keeps the surgeons from discussing nothing but work. Barry makes an effort to spend some time with all of his friends, even Iris who acts a little stiff when he suggests coffee on Sunday, but she agrees. He's thrown for a loop when he sees Hartley and Axel dancing, but Hartley couldn't look happier so apparently they made up.

"I'm going to dance with Barry for a song and tell him why we don't hate you anymore," Hartley tells Axel.

"You _hated_ me?" Axel asks, with none of his usual confidence.

Hartley kisses his cheek. "Of course not. But I told my friends to."

They dance to a slowed down, jazzy version of _Jingle Bell Rock_ , which they agree is ironic enough to be incredible, and Hartley tells him the whole sordid and all too familiar story about getting caught up in self-doubt and getting scared he was in too deep and pushing Axel away for no reason, and how it spiraled into some petty and hurtful fights that made Axel give up for awhile.

"I am so sorry I wasn't there for you, Hart. Really, I am." They're dancing, so it's easy to turn this into a hug. "We're on the same path. We always have been. It makes it easier to forgive each other, but also easier to forget to check-in. Even when I finally came back here, I talked to you last, and that's not fair to you."

"Stop beating yourself up, Barry. You have to stop that if you want to move forward. You can't expect anyone to forgive you - although I think we all have - but you definitely have to forgive yourself for doing whatever you had to to survive."

"Sounds like Axel gave you some good advice when you two got back together."

Hartley pulls a face. "I'd hoped to pass off the sage advice as my own this once."

They're on the dance floor with a lot of couples - Martin and Clarissa are giving them all a run for their money in terms of dancing talent, which is unexpected, but sweet - so it takes Barry a while to catch a glimpse of what is probably hospital scuttlebutt.

"Wally and Jesse?"

"Oh, yeah. She's very forward, and Wally is pretty shy so it's been entertaining."

He also sees Mick and Caitlin dancing. She's wearing a beautiful frosted white dress, and Mick is holding her like she's really made of frost and he's in danger of breaking her. His dad and Tina are laughing while they twirl around the dance floor.

Barry leaves the dance floor after their song because Axel wants another turn with his boyfriend and goes to find the one person he hasn't spoken to yet.

"Merry Christmas, Dr. Wells. Both of you. Drs. Wells. That's weird."

"You could call us Tess and Harrison, but I know you won't, _Dr. Allen_."

Tess Wells is a staple at these galas and played her part as the perfect Chief's spouse better than Barry has, but she's as capable a researcher as everyone in the room, just one with a PhD instead of an MD.

"It's good to see you, Dr. Wells," Barry tells her. "Dr. Wells," he says to his Dr. Wells, "could we talk for a minute?"

They take their conversation out into the hallway, away from the Christmas music and revelry. Barry isn't sure how to begin because he didn't plan this moment, just like he hasn't planned many moments since he first came back to CCGH.

"I don't know if you've heard, but I'm not using my speed anymore."

"I have heard," Dr. Wells says.

"In hindsight, I probably derailed your research by quitting like I did. You sacrificed a lot for me, and I was supposed to help you walk again -"

Dr. Wells holds up his hand, and Barry falls silent. "As much as I appreciate a mea culpa, Barry, I'll pass on this one, if you don't mind. If we've learned anything from the research we did together, it's that the metahuman gene is not responsible for your healing abilities. That is the speedforce, and given what we've all been through because of one man's desire to harness that power for his own ends, I think I will steer far, far away from that line of research. Maybe one day I will walk again, and maybe you will help me do that, but not with your speed, I think."

He takes off his glasses and rubs at his eyes. "That night hurt all of us in different ways, Barry. You seemed to take it the hardest because of the trauma you've seen before, but we were all hurt. Ronnie was my protege, did you know that?"

"No, I didn't. I thought Dr. Stein and Ronnie had always worked together."

"Martin took over his teaching after I was unable, but Ronnie was my brightest star, and my best work as a teacher. He wasn't from Central City, and his intern year was hard on him. His cohort didn't bond the way yours did. So that first year, he spent Christmas with my family."

"I had no idea. He and Lisa were such good friends."

"Not many people do. As a teacher, I have to say that I'd hoped you'd learned something from his death, but I don't think you have. At least, not what Ronnie would want you to learn."

Barry doesn't know what to say to that, so he says nothing. Dr. Wells rubs at his eyes again.

"But the joy of teaching is not always instant. Sometimes you have to wait years for your students to learn the lessons you try to teach them. It took Ronnie three years to figure out how to do a ventricular washout."

"He was so good at those," Barry says. It's a dangerous procedure, but Ronnie had the highest success rate of the entire neuro department.

"The wait was worth it. So I will wait for you to learn, Barry."

o o o

Barry doesn't go back to the party right away. He doesn't know what lesson Dr. Wells thinks he should have learned, and ruminating on it at the party will only bring everyone down, so he goes for a walk and finds himself on the peds ward. That's not surprising. After so many years of pushing the same elevator button and leaving the stairwell through the same door, it's almost muscle memory.

Most of the kids are asleep or trying to sleep. He can tell which ones have been here long term. They're the ones who are sleeping, no longer bothered by the footsteps of nurses and closing doors and beeping machines and sounds of sickness - the coughs, the crying, the whispers of nurses and parents trying to soothe a child back to sleep.

Michael and Ivy are wide awake, sitting in bed together and reading _The Runaway Dinosaur_ again. Ivy is either an exceptional reader or she's memorized the story. She lights up when she sees Barry leaning against the door jamb.

"Dr. Barry! Come here and I'll read to you."

"She couldn't sleep," Michael explains apologetically, "so I told her we could read for awhile."

"Christmas Eve is an exciting night." Barry takes a seat in the chair next to Ivy's bed. "I couldn't sleep when I was her age either. Or when I was your age ... for different reasons."

Michael looks like he wants to say something, but Ivy interjects before he can. "Tomorrow is Christmas so mommy will be coming back to bring us our presents."

"No," Michael says quietly. "Mom isn't coming back, Ivy. She's ... gone."

He looks helplessly at Barry, but Barry has tried to explain it to Ivy too. Everyone - Barry, Len, Cecile, Michael - agrees that she'll understand better after the funeral, but their grandmother hasn't been lucid enough to make arrangements, and no one wants to ask Michael to do it. Ivy pretends she didn't hear him, and Barry has the sinking feeling that it's time to ask for a psych consult, but he hates sending kids to Dr. Jesse because of his own experiences in that office.

"You know what the perfect gift this year would be?" Michael asks. "Knowing what's going to happen next year."

Barry has some idea of what will happen. Cecile will find a family able to take in siblings, and they'll show up at a new house that will never feel like home with a single suitcase. They'll have to leave their neighborhood and schools and friends, maybe multiple times, unless they get lucky and there's a family out there who wants to adopt older kids, but they probably won't because Michael is nearing that age when he's a little bit too old for prospective parents, even ones who are open to adopting an older child. So he'll age out of the system, and maybe he'll land on his feet because he's smart or because he has to for Ivy's sake, but she'll spend over a decade in the system, and she might not fare so well because she's too young to remember what security feels like, and even if Michael is a constant in her life, he can't be constant enough to make up for the loneliness that creeps in when he's not around.

Barry doesn't say any of that. He sits in silence while Ivy "reads" to them and tries and fails to tamp down his upset. Eventually, Ivy falls asleep against Michael's chest and the book is laid aside and Michael can say what he wanted to before Ivy interrupted.

"Dr. Snart said you grew up in foster care, and his sister did too."

"I did. For about seven years. And Lisa was in the system for more like eleven years."

Michael nods. "And you're all surgeons, so ... we can be okay, right?"

Barry is awful at hiding his emotions so he promises Michael that they can be all right and tells him he should get some sleep too. They lay Ivy down and tuck her in, and then Barry gets the hell out of there before he shatters any hope Michael has left with his tears. It's all too close, and it hurts so much to live those memories over again. The past seven months have been hard, but they're not his darkest days.

He feels restless and reckless. The urge to do anything, everything is so strong it feels like a tremor in his hands. He pushes through the crowd of mingling surgeons in the ballroom and finds Len talking with Henry.

"We have to go," Barry declares.

"It's not even eleven -"

"We have to go now," Barry says. "We have to do something."

"Are you okay, son?" Henry asks.

"No, I'm not! Ivy thinks her mom won't be dead tomorrow because it's Christmas and Michael has no idea what's about to happen to them, and he won't be able to protect Ivy the way you protected Lisa because no one has prepared him for that. He's not you, Len. He's me, and he's about to be broken by this fucked up system that's supposed to protect him. And ... we just, we have to _do something_."

Barry jumps when an arm wraps around his shoulders. His - and there's no other word for it - breakdown has attracted more attention than he's comfortable with, apparently, because it's Lisa holding him and he can feel other eyes on him.

"I have an idea," she says.

Lisa marches Barry out of the ballroom with Len and his dad following. Cisco is waiting at the door with their coats, and Caitlin gives Lisa the keys to her car because she seems clued in when Barry has no idea what's happening. They pile into Caitlin slightly too small car, and they must look slightly crazed in their formal wear as they spend hours and hundreds of dollars on toys, games, books, and clothes at Target. When they bring it all back to the hospital, the on call doctors in the attendings lounge definitely give them sidelong looks as they make a mess of wrapping paper and ribbon and bows.

"You know the hospital does this already," Mark says, as he pours himself a cup of coffee. "The nurses have been sneaking presents into rooms all night."

It's utterly ridiculous what they've done. There's at least three hundred dollars worth of presents that Michael and Ivy will never be able to keep because they won't fit into the suitcase they're allowed to pack. But something about the mountain of wrapped presents calms Barry. It's easier to breathe when he looks at the shiny blue and silver paper.

"This is for our kids," Lisa answers Mark.

 _Our kids._ The words echo inside Barry's head.

o o o

Barry doesn't get much sleep on Christmas Eve between the party, impromptu Christmas shopping, and getting an emergency page that Samira threw a clot. That shouldn't be a concern this late in her recovery, and Barry has the horrible feeling that there's some aspect of her metahuman abilities he hasn't considered.

The surgery is long - stretching into the late hours of the morning - and complications keep arising because Samira's skeletal frame is so malleable. Ultimately, all his efforts are unsuccessful. It about kills Barry to say it, but eventually he stands back from the table and takes a breath and says, "Prep for an amputation," because there's no way to save her leg when the tissue has been without oxygen for this long.

He doesn't think the day can get any worse, but as he's scrubbing out, a nurse reminds him that he got several texts during the surgery he decided not to check, and when he looks at them now, it's the last message he wants to see: Ivy 911.

Barry doesn't remember making the decision, but next thing he knows, he's standing in Ivy's room still in his teal Children's scrubs with the scent of burnt rubber wafting up from his shoes. Ivy is screaming like she's in the worst pain of her life. Len is holding her, and trying to calm her down with soft words, but she screaming, "I want mommy!" over and over and her cheeks are awash with tears. Michael has backed himself into a corner. He's always seemed so confident and collected around her, but now his expression is hollow, helpless and Barry can see that he finally gets it. He finally understands how their lives have changed and that he's not ready for it.

Barry gestures for Michael to come over to Ivy's bed. They just sit there for a while, Len holding Ivy and Michael patting her back and Barry's hand on Michael's shoulder, until Ivy cries herself to sleep. Len doesn't put her down, and Michael doesn't let go of her hand, and Barry doesn't move away from Michael.

"Thank you for all the presents," Michael says, "but I don't think we're going to open them today."

"We'll open them on Russian Christmas," Len says. "In January. I used to do that with my mom."

Barry didn't know that. He wonders if it was because Len's mother had some Russian heritage or because Lewis ruined every Christmas.

"We're not going to be here in January," Michael says bitterly. "I heard Cecile the other day. She wants us in foster care by then."

"We'll figure something out," Barry promises. "You might have noticed, but Len and I don't always play by the rules. We'll make sure you have Christmas."

Len is staring at Barry over Michael's head, and he knows that look. It's calculating, cunning, inspired. It's Len at his worst and very best. Barry isn't at all surprised to find himself sneaking - or, legally speaking, kidnapping - Michael and Ivy out of the hospital and driving to their apartment. They've been too busy for Christmas trees or wrapping presents for each other, so it doesn't look at all festive. Len makes blue box macaroni and cheese, and Barry puts a frozen pizza in the oven, and they buy _Tangled_ on demand because no parents die in that one, and when Cecile calls to ask where in God's name the kids are, Len steps out of the room to have a quiet conversation with her about where, exactly, he and Barry think Michael and Ivy should stay once they're discharged from the hospital.

o o o

Barry bites his lip to hold back his moan as Len's hips shift and he sucks at that special spot behind Barry's ear that always makes him a wreck. He's caught between the heat of Len's body over his and the heat of the rumpled sheets beneath him, but he's determined to stay quiet. Len thinks this little experiment is funny, and every once in awhile, a chuckle will escape his lips.

"You sure you don't want to let it out, Barry?"

"Shut up. You should practice this too."

Len is laughing again, and unfortunately, rolling off of Barry, which means that Barry has to follow him and straddle his hips and keep this lovely NC-17 morning from turning PG-13.

"They're five and ten," Barry says. "They know what sex sounds like, and we're going to traumatize them if they hear us!"

"They don't actually live here yet," Len argues.

"But they might soon, and we need to be prepared."

They're as prepared as they can be for Michael and Ivy to live with them. They replaced the queen bed in the guest room with a twin and child's bed. The closet is full of clothes for both of them, mostly stuff bought in the frenzy of Christmas Eve, and there are toys in a makeshift toy chest that used to be bench seating in the entrance. They have plenty of food kids love thanks to Barry. Most importantly, they want these kids.

All they need is for the paperwork to go through and Cecile to keep pretending she doesn't notice neither Michael nor Ivy have any of the flu-like systems Barry and Len continue to claim they have in their medical charts. They'll have more things to consider if it all follows the plan, like finding a bigger place to live so the kids can have their own rooms, but like Cecile keeps saying, it's all one step at a time.

"We're really doing this," Len says. "We're starting our family. We're gonna be dads."

Barry stills over Len, the gravity of those words so profound that they stop his heart. It looks like the wrong time. It feels like an emotional decision. And maybe it is, but that's what makes it feel so right. They've waited and waited, and their life hasn't gotten any simpler or easier, and it never will. There will always be deaths in the future and spectres from the past and stormclouds in the present. The important thing - the only thing - is that they can't picture their lives without Michael and Ivy. They can't imagine not kidnapping them from a hospital to cheer them up and going on midnight shopping sprees in formal wear to make them happy and dropping everything to hold them while they cry, and that's how they know this is right, right, _right_.

"We should celebrate," Barry says, with a wicked grin.

He dips down to kiss Len sweetly, but then traps Len's wrists over his head and moves his hips, and the sound Len makes is gorgeous, but Barry whispers, "Ssh" and Len plays along so that Barry won't stop what he's doing. Len can never play by the rules, though, and he keeps himself quiet by tucking his face in the crook of Barry's neck and biting. Barry tightens his hold on Len's wrists, but all it does is show his cards, and he can feel Len's wolfish grin before he licks over the spot he bit, and then bites again.

Barry's hands slip from Len's wrists to his palms. Their fingers interlock, they finish within moments of each other, both quiet and panting, and Barry collapses onto the too warm sheets beside Len. Len traces patterns onto his bare skin and kisses the invisible trails made by his fingertips, and Barry feels like he's still soaring well after his skin starts to cool.

"We should clean up and get ready for work," Barry says. "You want to join me in the shower?"

Len clearly has no plans to arrive at work on time. He rolls onto his stomach, and drapes himself over Barry and kisses him slow and sweet. His tongue feels sensuous and dirty along Barry's lips and in his mouth, and it's a lie to say he cares about getting to work on time with such a pleasant alternative.

Barry adores a lot of things about Len, and this is one of them. He still isn't sure if this is meant to be aftercare for him or Len or both of them, but he loves the indulgence and significance it gives to this aspect of their relationship. He gives Len all the time he wants to touch and kiss and gaze love into him.

"You seem better," Len says eventually.

"Because I am."

He really is. He hasn't had a nightmare in weeks, not since he reconnected with his friends, his family. Not since he cried on Lisa's shoulder and realized that what Dr. Wells was trying to say was that grief can and should be a shared experience. It's not really that simple, he knows that. There will be more sessions with Axel and trying to avoid triggers and being triggered anyway for a long time to come, maybe forever, but he's better than he was.

"I know what I want out of life again. I know what I'm meant to do. I might even know how to keep myself from ever going to that place again."

"What's that?"

"I have to do what I do best."

Barry tells him what that is, and for an instant Len looks terrified because what Barry does best has caused them grief and heartache plenty in the past, but then his expression clears because he understands what Barry finally does. There's not always a clear divide between our best and worst traits. Sometimes they are the same. It's not a matter of changing who we are, but of changing the perspective from which we see ourselves and letting that fresh angle transform our motivations.

o o o

Barry is running. Running faster than he ever has before. There's nothing in front of him, nothing to chase, no one to catch - it's just Barry and the speedforce, and belatedly he realizes, a quiet voice in his ear that sounds distorted at this speed.

"That's not left," Hartley says into the earpiece. "He's not going left. Barry, make two Ls with your hands ..."

"Don't be an ass," Barry says. "It's hard to understand you. I think your tech is faulty."

Hartley sputters, and there's static over the comms. "I can't deal with him anymore."

"Barry, why don't you come back to the hospital and we'll take a look at your comms," Dr. Wells says.

Barry is reluctant to stop running, but today isn't just about him having fun. They're crafting an experiment that involves Barry running, but also testing their equipment. He takes a sharp turn, the yellow lightning trails almost mirroring each other for a millisecond, and races back to the Metahuman Research Lab. He skids to a halt and the rush of air after him sends papers flying. Barry loves doing that, but Caitlin looks like she's counting to ten in her head so she doesn't punch him.

"Paperweights," she mutters. "We're buying lots of paperweights."

Barry pulls out the earpiece and tosses it down in front of Hartley. "Can you fix this?"

"It's not broken," Hartley insists.

"It's all staticy."

"Fix this first," Iris says. She smacks the computer at the center console several times, but the map on screen doesn't change. "The GPS says Barry is in Leawood instead of right here."

"I was in Leawood about twenty seconds ago," Barry says. "Did it freeze?"

"If the system freezes, you have to ..." Hartley makes a frustrated sound. "Oh, move over. I'll do it myself, just like I've done everything else since we started this project."

Dr. Wells spins his wheelchair around. His eyebrows are arched. "What was that, Hartley?"

Hartley wisely chooses not to repeat himself. He resets the computer program so that it syncs to the GPS tracker Barry is wearing. Then, he opens something that looks like a DOS window to change the program settings, hopefully so it can keep up with Barry. It's amazing what Dr. Wells and Hartley have taught themselves to get all of this equipment set up, and Cisco has outdone himself too. These friction-resistant shoes that he made just from his memory of things Gideon told him about the Flash on Earth-1 are incredible. Apparently, that Flash wears some kind of suit, which sounds weird, but Cisco swears it looks badass. Barry has only agreed to the shoes, though. The only uniform he's comfortable wearing are scrubs.

"There are still some bugs, yes," Dr. Wells says, "but we are very, very close."

"Close to what, though?" Eddie asks. He and Shawna have been monitoring Barry's vitals, which never cease to amaze them. "You still haven't said why we're doing this."

Dr. Wells glances around the room to make sure he has everyone's attention. He's been waiting to make his grand announcement until they're positive it can be done. Today is that day: the first time Barry has been able to run and still communicate with them.

"House calls," Dr. Wells says. "The hospital already monitors 911 calls to dispatch ambulances and prepare for incoming traumas, but sometimes EMTs can't get there in time, or can't get back here in time. So we're going to start responding to some of those calls at superspeed."

There's definite interest in the idea, but also some concern because everyone knows Barry has moved at superspeed to save lives, but also that the nature of an injury often prevents him from doing so. Still, it's superhero stuff and it's way cool.

Jax has been sitting at a workbench and flipping through a computer manual until now. "If you're gonna be doing all this hardcore fieldwork, why do you need all of us here?"

"Moving patients with my speed is usually too dangerous," Barry says. "Plus, I'm a peds surgeon, not a trauma surgeon, and that's not changing. Basically, I'm just the taxi."

Now that they understand, the interest is more enthusiastic.

"I volunteer!" Jax says.

"Wait. Does this mean my department is expanding?" Sara asks, and she sound as excited as she ever gets.

"Massively," Len says. Sara looks victorious. "We're going to redefine what makes a trauma center a level one."

Half a dozen conversations start up at once. Everyone who designed the model is answering questions and fielding suggestions from everyone who did not. Later, once everyone has calmed down a little, they'll explain how everything will work. Dr. Wells is moving into the Metahuman Research Lab permanently where he'll be able to monitor in real time when EMTs call in delays or hypercritical patients, if Barry is available to superspeed to the location, and who can treat on scene and what equipment they'll need.

"Are you happy?" Len asks.

Barry's answer is a wide grin. He doesn't see his reflection anywhere, but his smile feels bright and genuine and familiar, like maybe he can feel like himself again, sometimes, when he isn't running to escape or catch up or force a feeling. When he's running for a purpose, it feels like he's running toward himself, and finally, he can see clearly that that's a worthy goal.

o o o

Barry can't say that he doesn't expect the party, but it's a nice gesture anyway. There's a _Welcome Back!_ sign and balloons and cupcakes from Cisco's favorite bakery. Not everyone can get away from their patients, but most of them drop by for at least a few minutes to welcome him back to CCGH officially and grab a cupcake as they head off to surgeries or a lightroom or rounds, and he appreciates every appearance however brief it is.

"I am so relieved you're here," Ray says. "Don't get me wrong, Eliza Harmon is a world-class researcher, but she does not have the bedside manner we need in peds. Speaking of, we should talk tomorrow about fellow candidates for next year. I ... don't really trust myself after hiring her."

That means a lot to Barry, especially since Ray has rarely ever admitted he's not the best at something. "Yeah, absolutely. I'm pretty open since I don't have any patients here yet."

He still has to round at Children's until all of his patients are treated or their parents agree to let other doctors take over their cases. The only patient he wants to see through to the end is Samira, who starts working with a prosthetist at the end of the week. She's kept a good attitude so far, and he knows that it will get rough for her, but she'll be all right despite her loss. They'll all be all right despite their loss.

The party is going to last all night because that's how things work when the invitees can't always make it during designated hours. Eventually, when all the cupcakes are gone, the custodians will remove the balloons and banners and the party will be officially over. Barry and Len leave long before that.

Their last stop is Len's office, and for once not because an emergency has come up and Len has to stay longer, but because it was the quietest place in the hospital all afternoon. There are papers scattered everywhere. Half of them are drawings and coloring book pages of bright yellow birds, flowers, and the sun, and the other half are neatly printed notes about US Presidents and state capitals.

"Did you bring me a cupcake?" Ivy asks. She jumps down from the chair where she's been kneeling with the stump of a yellow crayon in her hand. She flashes them an unnaturally big grin and cheers when Barry produces a chocolate cupcake with yellow frosting from behind his back.

"We saved one for you too," Len says, sliding a plate across Michael's closed math book.

"I'm starving," Michael says. The cupcake is gone in three bites.

"I'm cooking for a growing boy and a speedster," Len remarks. "This is going to be interesting for us, Ivy. I hope we don't lose fingers at the dinner table."

"You're so silly, Len," she says, and continues making a gigantic mess of her cupcake as she licks all the yellow frosting off.

They talked with the kids about a lot of things after Cecile told them the good news that they were cleared to foster, with the intent of adopting. They talked about Ivy and Barry being metahuman, and why that has to be a family secret for now. They talked about what kind of house the kids want to live in because they have a meeting with a realtor soon. They talked about how things like parental labels and matching last names aren't necessary because family is how you feel and who you love.

Michael still looks nervous anytime Ivy says their names, and tries to avoid addressing them directly himself. He'll come around in time, Barry figures. Just like Barry figures that, in time, he'll adjust to having a ten-year-old son despite being feeling way too young for that task. And, in time, they'll adjust to being a family.

"We're starting this parenting thing off wrong," Len says, as he fights Ivy to wipe frosting off her cheeks. "We're supposed to make sure you eat a real dinner before dessert."

"I don't know if you know, but Cecile seems pretty aware that you two don't exactly follow the rules," Michael says. He finishes packing up his school books and hitches his backpack onto his shoulder.

Everyone who works in this hospital knows that. It's been their trademark since the very beginning.

"Flash medicine and Rogue parenting," Len says to Barry. "Interested?"

Barry's grin stretches so wide it makes his cheeks ache. "Extremely."


End file.
